


Words Cannot Heal These Wounds

by Evaldrynn



Series: In Her Loving Memory [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fǫruneyti Alternate Timeline, Fǫruneyti Alternate Universe, part four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 23:19:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12518888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evaldrynn/pseuds/Evaldrynn
Summary: A gesture meant so well, yet one that hurt as much as it soothed. How she wished it wouldn't have come to this.A Fǫruneyti fic yet in an Alternate Universe/Timeline, in which many, many things have happened differently. The character cast is the same, the magic system is the same, but oh so many things have changed. Please read Fǫruneyti first!





	Words Cannot Heal These Wounds

**Author's Note:**

> Part IV of In Her Loving Memory

No matter what she did she could not avoid him. She couldn't keep herself locked up in the Healer's Wing for weeks – not only was it unpractical and unhealthy, she had no doubt he would find her even if she hid at the bottom of the well – and avoiding him, even though the palace was massive, had proven to be an impossible task. Why couldn't he just let it go? He shouldn't even be able to remember her, and yet he somehow always found his way to wherever she was trying to hide from him. Was the universe truly that cruel? 

Even now, when the moon was rising higher in the star-speckled heavens and the nocturnal creatures had come out, she felt like he could appear at any given second and startle her with a compliment, or a sassy remark that was only slightly meant as a flirt.  
And of course she wouldn't be able to ignore him or hiss meaningless insults at him; not only because of his status and because etiquette was still important (especially now he did not know of what had happened between the two of them), but also because it would split the pieces of her already shattered heart in two. 

She had tried everything.  
She had told him that she was already involved with another man the first time he had found her again, but since he was so familiar with lies and trickery he had not been fooled in the slightest. She had tried being as cold as possible to him even though it physically hurt her, but it had ended up with him fucking her into the chaise longue, and the nightmares still haunted her. Pleasurable nightmares, of his hands and his mouth on her skin and his groans that rumbled through their bodies, followed by the overwhelming feeling of shame as she realised – even when unconscious – that she had taken advantage of his feelings.  
And still she kept doing it. She kept taking advantage.  
Having him hold her for a while, comfort her as she cried in his arms. She wasn't even strong enough to keep from flirting back and see that sparkle in his eyes. Oh how desperately she wanted to be close to him, to touch him, kiss him, tell him all that was wrong. But she couldn't. 

And it was tearing her apart. 

Could she keep this up for another three months? Until he left on his journey to the palace of Yllgard, where he would meet and marry his future wife? 

A soft cry escaped her lips and she dug her fingernails into her chest, the skin already bruised with so many crescent moons, old and fresh, that the shapes merged together into bigger constellations of black and blue over all those other impure colours beneath and around. Since a few weeks she had not been able to wear shirts or dresses that showed her collarbones anymore, and she didn't think she could go back to wearing them anytime soon. 

A soft knock sounded on the door that separated palace hallway from healer's atrium and she quickly buttoned up her blouse and wiped the salt from her burning cheeks. She hated how weak her voice sounded when she called out for the visitor to come in.  
The door opened slowly, almost hesitantly, and for a moment she feared the worst – until she spotted the blond hair and the blue dress and her blurry sight settled on the beautiful face that belonged to none other than the queen herself. 

“I came to check up on you.” 

Her voice was soft, too; yet not weak. Never weak.

“Thank you, your Majesty; that's very kind of you.” And it was, it truly was, but seeing her only made other types of pain and heartbreak tear at her insides and it was hard not to sink through her knees, to sink to the ground and stay there until her body would rot away. 

As always, the queen's glance was worried and deeply apologetic. She knew Frigga couldn't do anything about it. Frigga knew she couldn't do anything about it. Both of them suffered because of it. 

She strode over with the elegance that Loki had so obviously gotten from her – not by blood, but by admiration – and once more she was reminded of him and her love for him.  
She stopped within reaching distance but visibly hesitated to truly reach out, until she finally decided to lay a hand on the face of the woman standing before her, her thumb brushing softly over her cheek and the bag beneath her eye. 

“It breaks my heart to see you like this, to see you get worse. My husband...”She lowered her hand back to her side. “The war changed him, made him cruel.” With a deep sigh she turned her gaze to the window, her face oh so beautiful but her expression so sorrowful that not even the light of the moon could soften it. “I have tried everything to convince him to lift his order but he will not listen, not even to me. He has become blind to love.”

She sounded so tired, so incredibly tired, that her heart started to ache for her as well. A marriage that had lost its love, yet a woman that hadn't. It was beyond her how she still loved that man. After all he had done, all he had said... 

“Sometimes I wish he could lay politics aside and see his family, see that his son's happiness does not fit in the role he has given him. He has never really understood Loki.” The glimmer of tears in her eyes was as elegant and solemn as the rest of her. “You know how much he has hurt him before. You know of their history. I hoped he would have learned from his mistakes, but it seems he has gotten blind to those, too.” 

The queen's every word rang true and still she could not believe how king Odin could have such little empathy towards his son – adopted or no. He was cold, unrelenting, merciless. A king in all ways, a father in none.  
Frigga, however, was as kind and warm as a spring day, as fine as a flower in bloom even now that her age was slowly beginning to show; despite Idunn's apples. She was caring, loving, and she had become a motherly figure to her so quickly that she hated how soon her heart had tried to replace Medhea. But the charm and love of a mother was what she craved now that her entire universe seemed set on tearing her apart. How could she blame herself? And still, how could she not? With the pain still so fresh, the wound so deep she wondered whether it would ever start to heal; the loss so sudden and great that it felt like her world had been ripped from her hands. And Odin had done the same. 

But she was getting better, in some ways. The pain, though no easier to bear than the day before, became familiar. No longer were her nights occupied by crying herself to sleep – not all of them; and she knew that, when Loki was gone, she could try to start rebuilding herself. Start again, a new life in the same palace, with the same friends she had made here – yet without the only man she had ever truly loved.  
She didn't know if she could ever love again. 

“Sweet child, please believe me when I say I will not rest until I have found a way to change his mind. One day he will see-”

“It's okay.” Interrupting the queen was an offense so grave she barely dared to think about it, yet Frigga's words only stung and slashed and cut even though she meant them to soothe. “I... I just-” She just needed to get through these last three months, until Loki left. “The king won't change his mind, and so I have no other option than to bend to his will.” No matter how cruel. “I will get through this, worry not.” Because she had no other option. 

The queen almost winced when she saw how she tried to smile reassuringly but sent fresh waterfalls down her face instead, and so she pulled the young woman into her embrace. 

“It is not okay, we both know it is not – everyone knows it is not. I have seen and heard tales of men and women kill themselves over less. Please don't follow their paths. I will fight for my son's happiness, and I will fight just as viciously for yours.” 

She needed this, she needed this so bad she even forgot her status was far below queen Frigga's. It didn't matter. Not when she held her in her arms, comforted her, let her magic wrap around her. It felt so much like Loki's that even if she wanted to stop crying she couldn't. How was it so easy to miss someone, even though she saw him almost every day? How was it so difficult to ignore him, when all she wanted to do was to move on?

Frigga's embrace was the only thing keeping her upright. She felt weak, powerless. Was she being melodramatic? Was there such a thing as melodrama when everyone she cared about – her parents, her friends, her lover – kept slipping through her fingers?

“He should have erased both your memories himself instead of this. I... I can still do it for you, if you wish?” 

“No.” A quick answer, leaving her lips before her brain had processed it, and she quickly explained to soften the direct refusal. “I... I don't want to forget about him – about my time with him. Even if it hurts,” and oh did it hurt, “those memories are precious to me. I wouldn't be who I am without them.” 

She couldn't even wish to never have met him. All that had happened, all she had felt, experienced; even if she would never find love again she would at least have memories of it. Of him. 

The queen gently let go and raised her hands to lay them on the healer's shoulders. There were tears in her eyes as well. 

“You do not know how happy it makes me to hear you say that. No one has ever dared to cherish my son like you have. You are the best thing that could have happened to him; and even if he does not remember, you have changed him. He is a better man because of you.” 

A part of her, of her impact on him, would live on. Wouldn't that be enough? Would the world truly need more of her? How much of herself was she still, anyway? She felt so empty, so hollow. 

Frigga gave her a knowing look, a last soft caress of the back of her hand over the woman's cheek. 

“Stay strong, sweet child. You know you can come to me if you need to talk.” 

And, as she strode back towards the door and left the room, the warmth faded, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on my blogs!  
> http://feelingwonderfultoday.tumblr.com/  
> http://foruneyti.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'd love to hear your theories ♡


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